Disc drives are used as primary data storage devices in modern computers and computer networks. A typical disc drive includes a head-disc assembly (HDA) housing five to ten magnetic discs which are rotated by a spindle motor at a constant high speed and accessed by an array of read/write heads which store data on tracks defined on the disc surfaces. Electronics used to control the operation of the HDA are provided on a printed wiring assembly (also referred to as a "circuit board" or "card") which is mounted to the underside of the HDA.
Technological advancements in the art have resulted in continued improvements in disc drive data storage capacities. It has not been at all uncommon for each successive generation of drives to provide substantially twice the data storage capacity as the previous generation, at an equal or better data transfer rate. Design cycle times are also being shrunk to the point that a new generation of drives is typically introduced into the marketplace every few months.
To meet the tremendous technical and logistical challenges of remaining competitive in the present market, disc drive manufacturers have taken steps to design and release new disc drive products as fast and efficiently as possible. Of particular interest is component standardization, which involves the standardization of disc drive designs so that a wide variety of disc drive products from a single product family can be provided with the same or similar hardware components. The performance of each individual drive is then optimized during manufacturing through the selection of parameter values (such as write current, gain, filter characteristics, etc.) which are subsequently loaded and used by the drive during operation.
As modern disc drives typically employ firmware to provide programming for disc drive controllers (such as microprocessors and digital signal processors), manufacturers further commonly load substantially the same firmware on all of the drives in the same disc drive product family. The firmware relies upon additionally stored information indicative of the particular configuration of the drive (such as the number of discs, the data storage capacity, the type of interface, etc.) to access particular routines suitable for each particular disc drive configuration, and loads the parameters established during manufacturing to optimize the performance of the drive.
A typical disc drive includes one or more non-volatile memory devices (i.e., memory devices that retain their contents when external power is removed from the drive) to which the firmware is written. The parameter values and product information are also written to such devices during the manufacture of the drive. The devices are located on the disc drive printed wiring assembly (PWA) and are accessed during each initialization of the drive.
A problem can thus arise when an originally installed PWA is removed from a disc drive and replaced with a new, replacement PWA. Such replacements commonly occur during manufacturing and field service operations in response to, for example, the detection of a failure condition associated with the originally installed PWA. Unless steps are explicitly taken to ensure that the parameter values and product information associated with the HDA are transferred from the originally installed PWA to the new, replacement PWA, an error condition may result when the disc drive is reinitialized using the new PWA. Particularly, the firmware stored on the new PWA may expect to see a different hardware configuration than that which the HDA actually possesses, or the parameter values stored on the new PWA may be inappropriate for reliable operation of the drive.
Such mismatches in parameters and product information can result in unacceptable delays as a disc drive with a newly installed replacement PWA attempts to reinitialize. Moreover, when such mismatches in parameters and product information are sufficiently pronounced, the disc drive can be physically damaged when the drive attempts to spin-up and load the heads (i.e., operationally move the heads out over the disc surfaces). Although the optimal parameter values for an HDA are also typically stored on designated tracks of the HDA, such tracks cannot be accessed until after the disc drive has already successfully spun-up and loaded the heads.
Even when no replacement of the PWA occurs, problems can still arise when new, updated firmware is downloaded to the PWA, if the new firmware is incorrectly suited to the configuration of the HDA. Such firmware updates are often performed during field service operations, and although precautions are taken to ensure the correct firmware is downloaded, errors still occasionally occur. As will be recognized, a firmware-hardware mismatch can also result in the same types of problems that occur when an incorrectly configured PWA is installed.
Accordingly, there is a need for a way to readily indicate the product information associated with the HDA of a disc drive so as to eliminate problems when a new, replacement PWA is installed in the drive, or when new firmware is downloaded to the PWA.